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SUBMITTED AND ADOPTED JUNE 4th, A. D. 1902. 



DAVENPORT, IOWA : 

EGBERT, FIDLAR, &. CHAMBERS. 

1902. 






: 



■' h or. 
Ja ! 03 



(extract from the records.) 

In Grand Lodge, June 4th, 1902. 
Irpnrt $j»rial Gtommttta? — ilriKtnfcg iUrmnrial. 

Brother Morcombe (25), Chairman of the Com- 
mittee, presented the report, which — 

Upon motion of Brother Wilkinson (423), was 
adopted by a rising vote. 

Brother Hugg (18) moved that a copy of the 
memorial, as read, be appropriately printed and sent 
to Mrs. McKinley, which motion — 

Carried. 




Aurintt, 3Frer, an& Arreptrii HasmtB. 



P^N Grand Lodce, Fifty-ninth Grand Annual 

Communication, held at Dubuque, Iowa, 

June 3d to 5th, A. D. 1902, A. L. 5902, 

the following Proceedings were had, and 

are here extracted from the records. 

The Most Worshipful Grand Master, Lewis 

Jackson Baker, in his Annual Address, referred to 

the death of Brother and President McKinley in the 

following language : 




(Our fRartirrfu $lrrsi&rut. 




N Saturday morning, the 14th day of 
last September, Brother William 
McKinley, the President of these 
United States, died from the effects 
of a bullet wound received about eight 
days before from a man — mankind, 
I beg your pardon — an enemy of government, of 
civilization, of progress, a dastardly, lawless being, an 
anarchist, who with a revolver concealed in his right 
hand, which had been bandaged so as to convey the 
impression that it had been injured, extended his left 
to be greeted by our President, whom he then shot 
twice. Shot our President, did I say ? No, my 
brethren, it was our country he tried to assassinate 
and destroy — your home, my home. Every Mason 
and every true American, yea, humanity throughout 
the civilized world, was appalled at the crime and 
bowed in grief and sorrow. " He was a man of the 
people and for the people.'" A devoted lover of home, 
state, country, and humanity, in defense of which he 
offered his life upon the field of battle. He died as 
he lived — true to humanity and his God. Listen to 
his dying words, " Good bye ; it is God's way : His will 
be done." 

Masonry has an absolute abhorrence for all people 
who by disdainful word or act endeavor to weaken the 



pride in or love of country. Masonry stands for 
home, for country, for God, and for humanity. 

I would recommend that a committee be appointed 
to prepare a proper memorial to be presented to Mrs. 
McKinley by the Grand Lodge, and further, that a 
suitably inscribed memorial tablet be placed in our 
annual Proceedings. 

• ' He fell at the post of duty, 

And the nation's heart is wrung; 

No death of greater beauty 
By poet hath been sung, 

In silence deep he shares the sleep 
That falls on old and young. 

" Out of the crime and madness, 
Out of the gloom and pain, 
Out of the shame and sadness. 

The purpose of God is plain — 
That the nation rise through sacrifice. 
And turn its loss to gain." 




In the report of the Grand Secretary we find this 
allusion to the 

AiiiuUiiiiuatuiu nt" liinitluT iHriKiulru. 

NCE our last meeting the black shadow of 
grief has fallen across our land. The 
hand of a coward has stricken down the 
President of these United States in the 
period of his ripest usefulness, and when 
his wisdom and experience seemed most 
necessary to the well-being of the nation. There 
followed a brief time of world-wide anxiety and earnest 
prayer — and then the end. The nation ceased its 
labors, that it might kneel reverently beside the bier of 
its dead ruler, servant, and friend, while the whole world 
for a space forgot its bickerings to join in sympathy 
and mourning. 

To the Masonic fraternity this death brought added 
grief. As citizens, we felt the loss as keenly as did 
our fellows, while we also mourned the brother 
"stricken down in the performance of his duty, a 
martyr to his fidelity." At this communication of the 
Grand Lodge, the first since his death, it is meet and 
fitting that some action be taken which shall stand on 
record forever as an expression of grief for our eminent 
brother, loyalty to the land we love, and detestation of 
the horrid crime, and the hellish doctrines which made 
it possible. 



The Committee on the Grand Master's Address 
subsequently presented the following : 

We most heartily endorse that part of the Grand Master's 
address wherein he recommends the appointment of a com- 
mittee to draft a suitable memorial in honor of our martyred 
President. Brother William McKinley. We recommend that 
the committee be appointed and report at the present session. 
We also recommend that a tablet be inserted in this year's 
Proceedings in conformity with his recommendation. 

Whereupon the Grand Master announced as a 
Special Committee on the " McKinley Memorial " 
Brothers Morcombe (25) and Coburn (521), to report 
at present session. 

During the afternoon of the session of the second 
day. Brother Morcombe, from the Special Committee, 
presented and read the following tribute to the memory 
of our late Brother, President McKinley; which, on 
motion of Brother Wilkinson (423), was adopted by a 
rising vote. 



n 



f&temortant. 




Y ways incomprehensible, the purposes 
of God are wrought in the affairs of 
men and the destinies of nations. Ever 
and again there is demanded from the 
individual or the people a supreme sacrifice, that on 
the painful path of sorrow men may rise to higher 
things. In the hour of national pride death claims the 
manliest and kingliest, that the lesson of humility may 
be learned and faith be not forgotten. 

Thrice within the life of a generation has this 
nation bent in grief at the bier of its noblest and best, 
death-stricken by murderous hand; thrice, with bowed 
head, has it shared in the black sacrament of grief, 
hoping against hope through dark days of suspense 
and long nights of agony ; thrice has a whole people 
paced with slow and solemn tread in funeral march ; 
and thrice with reverent hands have the names of our 
martyrs been inscribed on Fame's entablature and 
Sorrow's symbols given place to the bronze-lettered 
record of everlasting remembrance. 



It is not wise nor needful that we again or here 
recite the cause of grief. Forever let the name of the 
misguided wretch who struck the coward blow be 
stricken from the records which men preserve for the 
future. Let us remember the act of the poor crazed 
brain only that we may guard against a repetition. 
But as to the hell-spawned creed, black with the slime 
of the pit and foul with the poisonous breath of 
malignant hate, which then worked to deadly end, and 
ever works in secret to other deeds of blood, let it not 
be forgotten. There is in this remembrance the call 
to stern duty — not prompted by revenge — - but by the 
instinct of self-preservation. There is before us as men 
and as citizens the stamping out of this whole alien 
brood, generated in the old world mire of want and 
ignorance and cast as refugees or refuse upon our 
shores. 

But we turn rather from these vile lives which 
degrade our estimate of humanity to him we mourn, 
whose character and manly virtues shall serve as 
example for generations yet to be. Clean and pure in 
body and in soul — 

"Amid the mirk and mire he kept his heart 
A temple for the Beautiful ! All warm 
And bright, with blessed light of Love, that window 
Of our dim life which ever opes on God ! ' ' 

It is to the lives of such men as this we point as 
being typical of what is best in American manhood — 



and, let me add, in American Masonry. Whatever 
the duty presented, humble or high, it becomes to such 
souls the imperative, God-given work of the present. 
To the future is left its own labors and its own 
responsibilities. Reward may well be trusted to the 
justice of men, the approval of conscience, and the 
approbation of the All-Wise. 

The life of William McKinley teaches us that 
opportunities are made by human effort and energy ; 
that high place and honor comes to him who deserves 
well of his fellows, without the adventitious aids of 
wealth and birth. We follow this expanding and ever- 
rising career with interest and with profit in the 
contemplation. We find him ever bearing full share 
of citizen duty in civic life, answering to the call when 
men were sorely needed to test war's stern arbitrament, 
and after battle taking up again the homely round of 
toil. 

So from point to point we trace his path until the 
suffrages of the nation had placed him as the peer of 
earth's greatest. We see him with head bared and 
bowed imploring God's guidance as he takes up his 
mighty task. He hears the cry of a suffering race in 
the islands of the sea. When protest was without avail 
and time had ripened to the purpose, he launched 
against ancient wrong the young strength of American 
manhood, and made a free people of those who had 
struggled ineffectually in their bondage. In the fiery 

10 



heat of political bitterness he preserved his soul in 
calm, and cherished with jealous care the honor of 
his people. 

Then the Master saw, perchance, what our blinded 
eyes might not behold — that this life had reached its 
height of earthly greatness, and that as remembered 
example and incentive it migh + give more and be 
more to the nation and the world than if it wrought 
longer in the ways of mortality. 

In olden story there is told of one, who sat at 
Arthur's table, type and pattern of all true manhood 
and perfect knighthood while the world may last, 
"whose strength was as the strength of ten, because 
his heart was pure." Into his tranced and sinless sight 
there swept a vision of the Holy Grail, unseen by 
grosser eyes. So to the soul of this our brother we 
believe there was vouchsafed, or ere he passed, a vision 
of things unutterable in mortal speech ; that his clean 
spirit looked beyond the mists of time into the spaces 
of eternal sunlight. And thus seeing the glory, as Sir 
Galahad beheld the holy vessel swinging down paths of 
heavenly splendor through the night, our brother gave 
to the tearful watchers his last message, that it might 
forever reinforce the faith of all men: "It is God's 
way ; His will be done." 

Need we here recount his private virtues, or tell you 
yet again of that manhood strong and true and tender, 
whose strength found noblest, most chivalric use in 



loving guardianship of home ; whose tenderness never 
failed for those he loved. The fierce and pitiless light 
which beats on those in high places found no flaw or 
blemish of which even jealous calumny might whisper 
to his detriment or shame. 

His love was a life-long idyll ; no dream of a 
summer day, to pass when flowers had faded. There 
was no call so imperative, no duty so engrossing, no 
pleasure so alluring but that his thoughts were turned 
by night or day to the wife who so sorely needed his 
constant support. 

And when at last the black-winged angel touched 
his lips to muteness, still he turned fast-failing eyes to 
that pallid face beside his bed, that he might repeat 
yet again in soul language a message of love and 
comfort to the frail but cherished flower of his life. 

God be thanked, in an age of indifference, when 
men boast of all the ties of home relaxed and broken, 
and stray hither and thither in disregard of vows and 
duty, that one true soul, standing full high to catch 
attention and enforce respect, has set example of 
manly virtue and domestic honor. To such as this 
there comes anew the promise uttered first on the 
Mount of Beatitudes: " Blessed are the pure in heart, 
for they shall see God." 

You can recall the sudden shock with which the 
nation heard the news of murderous assault. You 
remember the short period of prayer, of anxiety, and 

12 



then of anguish as in the solemn night hour there was 
flashed over land and sea to watchers everywhere the 
fatal message. Upon the whole land there fell the 
hush of silent grief. In cottage home and in the 
mansion of wealth there was the black emblem of 
mourning. 

And then came the last sad scene, such as no 
land nor time had known before, when from the 
nation's capitol passed the funeral cortege to the old 
'Ohio home and thence to the grave. The busy wheels 
of a continent's commerce ceased, the factory's hum 
was hushed, labor put by its tools, while tolling bells 
and booming guns beat out the solemn strokes of time 
from sea to sea. 

It was finished. The thorny crown of earth's 
agony had become the star - tipped diadem of a 
martyr's glory — 

"All Saviour-souls have sacrificed. 

With nought but noble faith for guerdon ; 

And ere the world hath crown' d the Christ, 

The man to death hath borne the burden ! 

"And heart-strings sweetest music make 
When swept by suffering' s fiery fingers ! 
And thro' soul-shadows starriest break 

The glories on God's brave lighl-bringers ." 

As Masons we have pride in such a record as this 
of our dead. We have shared to the full in the grief 
of the nation at his untimely end ; we have joined in 



13 



reprobation of the crime and the dogma of bitterness 
which prompted it. Devoted to God, to loyalty, and 
to our fellow-men, we wish to thus place ourselves on 
record. But for the brother passed, faith takes up for 
us a jubilant strain, and we believe that — 

" When 
His life burst its worn manacle of clay 
And wore God's splendor 'round it like a raiment. 
Throbbing with glory like a midnight star, 
All Heaven was hushed to hear the Lord's ' Well done ! ' 
Then shining hosts and quiring orbs sang ' Welcome ! ' 
And angels crown' d him in their capitol. 
For in his heart he kept God's image bright. 
Love was his life-blood. Thro' the long work-day — 
The dark and terrible night-time — aye, to death. 
He nursed his love ; and God Himself is love." 

To the suffering souls God giveth comfort, to those 
who mourn time brings relief, and when such national 
bereavements, seemingly without purpose, prompt 
despair — 

•• Take heart! Tho' sown in tears and blood. 
No seed, that's quick with love, hath perished, 
Tho' dropped in barren by-ways — God 
Some glorious flower of life hath cherished. ' ' 

Joseph E. Morcombe,, 

„ „ ^ ^Committee. 

u. r. Coburn, 



14 







Attest : 

A true copy from the records. 

Witness our hands and the seal 
of the M.\ W.\ Grand Lodge of 
Iowa, at Cedar Rapids, this first 
day of August, A. D. 1902. 



Grand Master. 
Grand Secretary. 




15 




ittasuuir Sforord nt* Iflilliam ittrlK'iulni. 

ILLIAM McKINLEY'S entrance into the 
Order was an incident of the war between 
the States. In Winchester there was a 
regular Lodge of Masons, officered by 
Confederate soldiers, or citizens on parole. 
The desire of young McKinley was made known to 
the officers of Hiram Lodge, No. 21, of Winchester, 
his petition was presented, and he was elected. On 
the night of May 1st, 1865, at 7:30 o'clock, he presented 
himself for initiation. J. B. T. Reed, a Confederate 
chaplain, was Master of the Lodge, and conferred the 
Degree of Entered Apprentice upon the candidate. On 
the following morning he was instructed in the work, 
and on the evening of the same day the Degree of 
Fellow Craft was given. There was more instruction 
on the day following, and on the afternoon of May 3d, 
at three o'clock, he received the Master Mason Degree. 
But three Masons are now living who witnessed the 
initiation. 

Returning from the war, Major McKinley demitted 
from the Winchester Lodge, and first affiliated with 
Canton Lodge, No. 60, of Canton, Ohio. When Eagle 
Lodge, No. 431 , also of Canton, was organized, Brother 
McKinley became one of its charter members, and 



it. 



continued his membership therein until his death. His 
interest in Freemasonry was marked, and never flagged 
nor failed. At different times in his busy career he 
left the affairs of state to attend to his Masonic duties. 
He was Grand Orator of the Grand Lodge of Ohio on 
the occasion of laying the corner-stone of the Masonic 
Temple at Canton. 

In 1883 Brother McKinley received the Degrees 
of Royal Arch Masonry in Canton Chapter, No. 84, 
R. A. M., and in the following year (December 18th 
and 23d, 1884) he received the Illustrious Order of 
the Red Cross, and was created a Knight Templar in 
Canton Commandery, No. 38, K. T., at Canton, Ohio, 
in both of which branches of Masonry he thereafter 
took great pleasure. 

— Adapted from Proceedings Grand Lodge of Ohio. 



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SEP 24 IW2 



